Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday urged voters to ponder President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) China-friendly cross-strait policy, saying Beijing would step up efforts to push for unification before 2012.
“All signs indicate that China is mustering its efforts to push for unification,” Lu said. “Beijing is not content with the two sides signing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA]. They want more, including military and political ties, and culture is the adhesive that glues everything together.”
Lu was referring to Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu (蔡武), who concluded a visit to Taiwan yesterday, having proposed that Taipei and Beijing sign a cultural accord.
The most pressing matter of the moment, Lu said, was for the 23 million Taiwanese to resist Beijing’s pressure for unification in a cool and persistent fashion.
Parris Chang (張旭成), chief commentator of Formosa Weekly — a magazine founded by Lu — said Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) would continue to pressure the Ma administration for political talks as Hu was eager to leave a legacy before he hands over power in 2012.
Hu could do so through the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), he said.
“The question is whether President Ma can resist the pressure and for how long,” he said.
Lu, who heads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s policy advisory team, said she would organize a unit to stump for DPP city councilor candidates in the November elections. Members must pledge to run a clean and green campaign, she said, in part by making use of the Internet.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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